5 Reasons To Love Negative Feedback

No, that title is not wrong! Negative feedback is one of the worst things you can deal with as a crafter/maker/designer. It crushes us and in one instant, makes us doubt everything we've ever made.

I recently got my first bout of negative feedback and it hurt unbelievably as you can imagine and I felt out of sorts all day.

As you can't please everyone, it has probably happened/will happen to every crafter at some stage, but you can always turn it around and here are some reason to actually love negative feedback.

Made By Giftsandbobs

1. It Keeps You Grounded

I've not had 1 negative feedback in over a year, so it took me by surprise when I got not just 1, but 2 in the space of a couple of weeks. At first, I was angry and thought "How can they say that!?" but after sleeping on it, I thought "I'd rather people say what they feel, even if its bad".

Getting praise is great, but now and again its nice for someone to say something negative, as its so easy to get caught up in praise, but the reality is your products are not going to be to everyones tastes.

2. It Helps You To Improve

Some people can be seriously harsh in their feedback and while you might feel its the customers fault for say, not reading the listing information properly, you can always stop this from happening again by changing your listings to add more prominent info. 

You probably won't feel like this at first as you're understandably angry and upset, but you should look at the feedback and say "Ok, why did they feel that way? How can I make sure it doesn't happen again?"

Made By jo lucksted ceramics

3. It Tests Your Professionalism

It's so easy to turn around and be rude to someone who left you negative feedback, especially if its completely wrong, but if you think about it, this could have an effect on future sales.

Most sites show a feedback rating or have a feedback system of some sorts. If a problem is not handled with professionalism and someone reads your rude feedback, it can deter people from buying from you. 

If you're going to reply to negative feedback, i'd advise leaving it a day or two so you'll hopefully be in a better frame of mind about the whole thing, don't just charge in!

4. It Puts Things In Perspective

It's very easy to doubt yourself over 1 negative feedback, but comparing it to your good feedback, is it so bad? 1 neutral or negative from 100 sales is pretty good, right?

Some people do like 100% feedback when buying, but if you've handled the issue in a professional manner, I can't see how you'd stop having sales because of 1 bad review. Some people don't look at feedback anyway - so long as they like the item!

From Joe and Flo

5. It Prepares You For The Worst

Getting negative feedback the first time should in theory, prepare you for the second time (not that you want it to happen ever again)

Even if you've never had a single negative comment, preparing yourself incase it does actually happen will probably help in the long run. As mentioned at the beginning, your products may not be to everyone's tastes so you can never assume you'll always get great feedback, although in a perfect world that would be nice!


And that's it! The tips above won't stop the hurt and worry that negative feedback causes, but hopefully it'll help you pick yourself up and to show that something bad can be turned into something good :)

x x